How cash volumes have dwindled on the stock exchanges and how brokers are doing badly have been the subject of much discussion among market-men. But this does not seem to have deterred new brokers and sub-brokers from registering for business.

There were 9,235 registered stock brokers in the country in the cash segment as on March 31, against 8,804 a year ago, says SEBI's annual report.

During 2010-2011, 531 new stock brokers were registered in the cash segment while 100 surrendered or cancelled their broker membership. The corresponding numbers for the previous year were 312 and 160 respectively.

In the equity derivatives segment, 99 registrations were added during the year on NSE, making for a total of 1,299 brokers on that exchange. Surprisingly BSE, on which derivatives trading is negligible, registered 340 new brokers in this segment, nearly doubling their number to 787 as on March 31.

The number of sub-brokers registered with SEBI rose 11.4 per cent. There was a net addition of 8,574 sub brokers in 2010-11, taking the total number to 83,952.

There was a small increase in the number of foreign institutional investors. Their numbers rose to 1,722 from 1,713. Sub-accounts also showed an increase, at 5,686, against 5,378 a year ago.

Investigation

SEBI completed 82 cases of the 104 new cases that were taken up for investigation during the fiscal year. About 54 per cent of the cases pertained to market manipulation and price rigging, against about 62 per cent of such cases in the previous year. The other cases related to insider trading, takeover violations, and irregularities in capital issues.

Under adjudicating proceedings 1,257 cases were disposed of by SEBI, and 571 fresh cases initiated.

SEBI filed 24 prosecution cases that were disposed of by the courts, while 17 new cases were initiated.

The stock market regulator received 359 applications for settlement of cases under the consent and compounding process in 2010-11; 185 of these cases were settled by the passing of orders while a total amount of Rs 72.68 crore was collected by way of settlement, legal charges and disgorgement.

The number of applications received under the consent scheme has considerably reduced; in 2009-10; 702 applications were received in 2009-10 while 692 applications were received in 2008-09.

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